Saturday, July 06, 2013

The Obama Administration continues to champion a bizarre vision of “democracy”
in Egypt today, after several days of condemning President Morsi in the
midst of a military coup that has now forcibly removed him from power.

The military has forced an elected leader out. And Barack and company want to pretend that's democracy?

Okay then, we've got our idiot of the week: the Obama administration.

And now I dip into the e-mails. There was a question that might have been better going to my mom. It's not a cooking question per se but, as a mom many times over, she would have known the best answer.

What's most likely going on is the summer heat's getting him. The summer heat makes you need more water than you would need normally because the heat's forcing you to lose so much water in sweat.

I drink 64 ounces of water a day. In the summers, before our move, that would sky rocket and, on some days, it would double completely. Water's good for you.

Drinking a lot of water, for example, helped clear up my oldest sister's acne when doctors and treatments did nothing. Drinking lots of water helped keep one of my brother's weights down. For me?

What I found was that if I was inside at the hottest part of the day and drinking cold water from the fridge (or with ice), I didn't need the ac. Just a fan could keep me cool because the water was cooling me from inside.

But I wouldn't worry about needing more water in July than you did in June. You're sweating more out and you've got to replace that.

Friday, July 5, 2013. Chaos and violence continue, protesters are
attacked in Iraq, the press largely ignores it, Nouri's control over
Iraqi forces isn't as strong as he would hope, Moqtada and his
parliamentary bloc continue to call out the US, Ed Snowden may have
sanctuary, Venezuela really celebrates its independence, Barack is
revealed as impotent on the world stage in so many ways, and more.

Since December 21st,
Fridays in Iraq have meant protests. The actions have been going on
now for over six months. The western media has largely ignored the
attacks. That happened again today as many outlets -- including the BBC
-- wrote about 'big violence' that was only two more dead than an
attack on the protesters. But western outlets like the BBC ignored the
bombing targeting the protesters. This happens every week. You'd think
six months of dedication on the part of the Iraqi people would
translate into coverage but the western media's not interested in Iraq.

That's the remains of a car bombing that targeted Samarra's protest
today and the Tweet notes that eye witnesses saw one of Nouri's forces
in the car. Pakistan's Daily Times notes, "The bomber wore an army uniform, police said."

Alsumaria reports that the preachers in the province (Salahuddin) are saying that the security failed the protesters. All Iraq News reports that 12 people are dead from the Samarra bombing and another nineteen are injured. NINA notes
the Motahidoon Alliance denounced the attack on the sit-in and termed
the attack, "continuation of the attempts to silence the voices opposing
the Government's unjust and forceful trend. [. . . ] The peoples' will
cannot be defeated, and the martyres' blood is a force that keeps the
protestors moving to the end of the road of reform." The Motahidoon
Alliance is part of Iraqiya and it is led by Speaker of Parliament Osama
al-Nujaifi. Kareem Raheem and Janet Lawrence (Reuters) report :

Protest organiser Adnan Al-Muhanna called on Sunnis to take to the streets daily and follow the example of Egyptians.Egypt's
first freely elected president Mohamed Mursi was toppled on Wednesday
after the army intervened following mass demonstrations against his
rule, a year after the Islamist was sworn into office."Demonstrations
can make the change. Neither elections nor weapons can do that,"
Muhanna said. "Within one year, the Egyptians changed the Mursi regime
through demonstrations because they were well-organized."

Yesterday saw at least 14 deaths and at least thirty-four injured. Three of the dead? Doctors killed in Baghdad.

All Iraq News noted
that the Parliament's Health and Environment Committee
"discussed several amendments on Physicians Protection Law preparing for
a vote to be endorsed by Parliament." Alsumaria added
that Moqtada al-Sadr declared these attacks cannot be allowed, called
for an immediate investigation into the attacks on the three doctors and
declared that Iraq cannot allow the hands of terrorism to target and
impair the medical community." If you missed it, recent violence has
required Iraq to utilize hospitals in other countries. The "brain
drain" in the early years of the war has not been repaired and has left
Iraq without a sufficient number of medical providers. Nouri's been
prime minister for seven years now. Why the hell he didn't implement
fast track programs of training is a question the Iraqi people should be
demanding answers to. Instead, he continues to try to pad out Iraq's
medical community by importing nurses from other countries. At a time
when Iraqis face massive unemployment and with all the billions Iraq
sits on, there was plenty of time, plenty of people to start up a
nursing program that could have turned out LVNs and RNs very quickly and
had them working in the hospitals instead of importing nurses into the
country.

Iraq can't afford more violence aimed at doctors. That's what Moqtada's
smart enough to grasp although it escapes Nouri. A second brain drain
is possible. Violence is again increasing in Iraq. Today, 3 doctors
were killed in Baghdad. This is the sort of thing that can lead to a
panic. If you're a doctor in Iraq and you've told yourself things will
get better, you've said you want to honor the Iraqi people and you've
stayed? The violence has never ended and at some point -- when doctors
are being targeted again -- you have to ask yourself exactly how much
longer you can wait for the violence to end? For some, it won't take
much to push them out of Iraq at this point.

Meanwhile All Iraq News reports today, "MP, Iqbal al-Ghurabi, of al-Ahrar bloc within the Sadr Trend
called to close the US Embassy in Iraq due to its interference in the
Iraqi internal affairs." This is not an isolate remark but part of a series of responses from Moqtada and his Sadr bloc.

Sunday, All Iraq News reports
cleric and movement leader Moqtada al-Sadr issued a response to a
question in which he declared Iraq's next prime minister will not
conduct business with the occupying US. He states, "We will nominate a
Prime Minister who loves Iraq and Iraqis and will not deal with the US
occupiers to let down Iraq and its honor -- and will not let the USA
possess its wealth." This is said to be in response to statements US
Ambassador to Iraq Stephen Beecroft recently made. Dropping back to last Friday's snapshot:

Al Rafidayn reports
that the US Ambassador to Iraq Stephen Beecroft met with the Iraqi
media and answered questions. Among them, a new Iraqi prime minister?
Parliamentary elections are scheduled for 2014. Beecroft stated it is
the job and right of the Iraqi people to pick their leaders and the US
is prepared to have a diplomatic relationship with any Iraqi chosen to
represent the people. He refused to speculate on any particular
person. He was asked about the F-16 fighters and stated that they would
not be delivered until September 2014.

In a statement distributed
to the media, Sadr said, “We will nominate as a candidate a prime
minister who loves Iraqis and whom they love. He will not be hated by
non-believers, and will show modesty in dealing with believers. He will
be one of them.” He continued, “The prime minister ... will not deal
with the unrighteous occupier, in order to give Iraq prestige,
independence, dignity and honor.”
"The Americans," he said, "will not be able to manipulate the fate,
rights, wealth and souls in Iraq again.” Sadr then addressed the US
ambassador, saying, “Your threat will not be useful. Deal with us
however you wish ... We will deal with [the Americans] in ways that you
have never seen before.”The Mahdi Army,
an armed branch of Sadr's movement, engaged in bloody armed combat with
American forces from 2004 to 2007. However, things changed after Sadr
decided to freeze his fighters’ activity and senior officials close to
the movement confirmed in 2008 that the movement would turn to political
action. Yet Sadr's recent remarks directed at the US ambassador
indicate that he desires to rise to power after the 2014 parliamentary
elections.
Tariq Kikhany, a leading figure of Sadr's movement, said, “Our
political weight grew from 2003 until the April 2013 provincial
elections." In a phone interview with Al-Monitor, Kikhany said,
“For the 2006 to 2010 term, the movement won 30 seats. The number of
seats, however, increased to 41 for the current term.”

Some who dismiss Moqtada will dismiss his statements as idle threats.
They'd do well to remember the rumors that, in the fall of 2010, the
Iranian government stated they would back Moqtada as the next prime
minister of Iraq and that he should just go along with them now on Nouri
al-Maliki.

Nouri can't hold on forever. He can't even hold onto his security forces. Dropping back to the June 13th snapshot:

Jason Ditz (Antiwar.com) notes:The Iraqi military’s violent attacks on Sunni Arab protesters weren’t
the panacea that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was expecting them to
be, but it also cost the army 1,070 troops, according to officials.The troops, ethnic Kurds, mutinied when they were ordered to attack a
Sunni Arab town where protests were taking place, and then refused to
attend “disciplinary re-training” meant to ensure that they wouldn’t
hesitate to attack Iraqi towns if ordered in the future.

AFP reports
that Tuz Khurmatu Mayor Shallal Abdul explains the troops are still in
their same positions, they're just now working for and paid by the
Peshmerga -- the elite Kurdish fighting force.

Hundreds of Kurdish soldiers recently deserted
from the Iraqi army. Were they responding to government injustice - or
getting on side with others of their own ethnicity? And what does this
mean for the Iraqi army? Can it still be relied upon?

The hundreds of Iraqi Kurdish soldiers who deserted the
Iraqi army recently indicate once again the depth of ethnic and
sectarian divisions in Iraq’s armed forces. According to information
obtained by NIQASH, dozens of Iraqi Kurdish soldiers deserted when the
Iraqi Ministry of Defence ordered members of the Iraqi army’s 16th
Brigade and 12 Iraqi Kurdish officers to move from the disputed town of Tuz Khormato
in the Salahaddin province – currently declared a disaster zone after
multiple bomb blasts - to other duties a little further south, and
mostly to the town of Sulaiman Bek, where Sunni-Arab protestors had
become violent; in fact, gunmen took control of the town for several
days.

“Our mission is to serve in the disputed areas,” Captain
Recot Mohammed, the spokesperson for the 16th Brigade, told NIQASH. “So
when we were given the order to move from Tuz Khormato without any
apparent justification, we threatened to desert.”

And it’s not just the Iraqi Kurdish who have problems with
these kinds of orders. “There are signs that the Iraqi army can no
longer cope with a crisis in which it is confronting large fractions of
the Iraqi population,” wrote a European peace-activist think tank with a
special focus on Iraq, the Brussels Tribunal,
in a roundup of events after anti-government protestors were killed by
the Iraqi army earlier this year. “Many soldiers prefer to desert the
army rather than shoot at protesters. Most deserters are Sunni, but some
are Shia who don’t want to fight in strange places for something they
don’t believe in.”

As Nouri finds the forces less than eager to help him become the new
Saddam Hussein, the US remains in Iraq -- diplomatically and
militarily. Yesterday, Donna Gorman (Huffington Post) wrote of her husband year long deployment with the State Dept in Iraq which began this morning:

Our youngest child, 5-year-old Ainsley, has taken it the hardest. She
snuck into our bedroom last night, as per usual, threw her arms around
her daddy and said, "I don't want you to die in Baghdad, daddy."
What the what? She's 5. Let me tell you, neither of us was
quite sure how to respond to that small trauma. We didn't think she even
understood that he was leaving, let alone sophisticated enough to
process the fact that we're sending him into harm's way. We knew it was
going to be hard on our sons, who are 13 and almost 10, and who know
exactly what's going on in Iraq and in the region. We figured our
7-year-old daughter might have some questions for us: After all, she's
still traumatized by the duck-and-cover that we lived through here at
the Embassy in Jordan just two years ago. But Ainsley? We didn't even
try to explain it to her.
Explain to the other kids, yes. They all know their daddy is a policeman
of sorts -- a federal agent with the State Department's Diplomatic
Security Service. They usually see him in a suit and tie, but they've
also seen him dressed in his federal agent gear. They've seen his
office, with its cool gadgets and photos of him and his colleagues at
work. They've eavesdropped on many a dinner conversation and phone call,
when riots and shootings and all manner of bad guys are discussed. And
of course they've seen him run out the door in a hurry when some
emergency crops up. So, they know what he does for a living, and they
are proud of his work. But I didn't realize, not until that late night
comment from my baby, that even she understands the risks he is about to
face because of his job.

That's the diplomatic aspect of the ongoing US mission. The military aspect? Dropping back to the April 30th Iraq snapshot:

This shouldn't be surprising. In the November 2, 2007 snapshot
-- five years ago -- we covered the transcript of the interview
Michael R. Gordon and Jeff Zeleny did with then-Senator Barack Obama who
was running in the Democratic Party's primary for the party's
presidential nomination -- the transcript, not the bad article the paper
published, the actual transcript. We used the transcript to write "NYT: 'Barack Obama Will Keep Troops In Iraq'"
at Third. Barack made it clear in the transcript that even after
"troop withdrawal" he would "leave behind a residual force." What did
he say this residual force would do? He said, "I think that we should
have some strike capability. But that is a very narrow mission, that we
get in the business of counter terrorism as opposed to counter
insurgency and even on the training and logistics front, what I have
said is, if we have not seen progress politically, then our training
approach should be greatly circumscribed or eliminated."

This
is not withdrawal. This is not what was sold to the American people.
Barack is very lucky that the media just happened to decide to take that
rather explosive interview -- just by chance, certainly the New York Times
wasn't attempting to shield a candidate to influence an election,
right? -- could best be covered with a plate of lumpy, dull mashed
potatoes passed off as a report. In the transcript, Let-Me-Be-Clear
Barack declares, "I want to be absolutely clear about this, because
this has come up in a series of debates: I will remove all our combat
troops, we will have troops there to protect our embassies and our
civilian forces and we will engage in counter terrorism activities."

So
when the memo announces counterterrorism activies, Barack got what he
wanted, what he always wanted, what the media so helpfully and so
frequently buried to allow War Hawk Barack to come off like a dove of
peace.

For those who struggle with reality, you can refer to the US Congressional Research Service published "Iraq: Politics, Governance, and Human Rights." The report was written by Kenneth Katzman. We'll note the part on the MoU:

Reflecting an acceleration of the Iraqi move to reengage militarily
with the United States, during December 5-6 2012, Under Secretary of
Defense for Policy James Miller and acting Under Secretary of State for
International Security Rose Gottemoeller visited Iraq and a Memorandum
of Understanding (MOU) was signed with acting Defense Minister Sadoun
Dulaymi. The five year MOU provides for:* high level U.S.-Iraq military exchanges* professional military education cooperation* counter-terrorism cooperation* the development of defense intelligence capabilities* joint exercises

The MOU appears to address many of the issues that have hampered OSC-I
from performing its mission to its full potential. The MOU also
reflects some of the more recent ideas put forward, such as joint
exercises.

Hopefully, that's clear to even the most delusional member of the Cult
of St. Barack. And all that was before last week's news about General
Martin Dempsey (Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) declaring that the
US needed to send more troops into Iraq. See:

As Michael Evans (Times of London) noted
last week, "The Pentagon is to deploy specialist training troops to
help Iraq's military to stop al-Qaeda-aligned forces who are arming
extremist groups over the border. More troops were sent back in last
fall with no objection from the so-called 'left' peace 'leaders' in the
United States. A new military agreement was announced and not one of
our 'brave,' 'left' outlets (The Progressive, The Nation, Democracy
Now!, ZNet, CounterPunch, etc., etc.) could bother to note it. Last
week they were all AWOL as Dempsey spoke publicly at a press conference
in DC explaining that US troops were going back into Iraq.

There's nothing independent about so-called 'independent' media in the United States.

On behalf of President Obama and the people of
the United States, I congratulate the people of Venezuela as you
commemorate the day that Venezuela declared its independence 202 years
ago.Venezuela and the United States have much in common. For example,
revolutionary leader General Francisco de Miranda also played a part in
our own struggle for independence, participating in the Battle of
Pensacola in 1781. His contribution is forever memorialized in a
monument that stands in the heart of Philadelphia, the original capital
of the United States. When a devastating earthquake struck Venezuela in
1812 the United States sent the Venezuelan people the first humanitarian
assistance it ever provided to a foreign country. These two examples
demonstrate that Venezuela and the United States have shared ties of
friendship and common values since the birth of our two nations, and the
ties between our people endure.I wish Venezuelans everywhere health, happiness, and hope on the anniversary of your independence.

And their independence includes not being lackeys of the United States. AP reports
that Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro is offering NSA
whistle-blower Ed Snowden asylum and the President of Nicaragua, Daniel
Ortega, stated that they would be willing to provide sanctuary in
Nicaragua as well "if circumstances allow." The revelations resulting
from Ed Snowden's whistle-blowing have been many. Glenn Greenwald (Guardian) provided an overview Wednesday night:The first NSA story to be reported was our June 6 article
which exposed the bulk, indiscriminate collection by the US Government
of the telephone records of tens of millions of Americans. Ever since
then, it has been undeniably clear that James Clapper, the Director of
National Intelligence, outright lied to the US Senate
- specifically to the Intelligence Committee, the body charged with
oversight over surveillance programs - when he said "no, sir" in
response to this question from Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden: "Does the NSA
collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?"That Clapper fundamentally misled Congress is beyond dispute. The DNI himself has now been forced by our stories
to admit that his statement was, in his words, "clearly erroneous" and
to apologize. But he did this only once our front-page revelations
forced him to do so: in other words, what he's sorry about is that he
got caught lying to the Senate. And as Salon's David Sirota adeptly documented on Friday, Clapper is still spouting falsehoods as he apologizes and attempts to explain why he did it.How is this not a huge scandal? Intentionally deceiving Congress is a felony, punishable by up to 5 years in prison for each offense. Reagan administration officials were convicted of misleading Congress as part of the Iran-contra scandal and other controversies, and sports stars have been prosecuted by the Obama DOJ based on allegations they have done so.

Reserves the right to detain people (including Americans) indefinitely without trial.

Can search homes without telling people they were there.

Can still carry out renditions.

Can get copies of all of your records (from the library, bank or credit card company) without a warrant.

So
to sum things up, if you become a person of interest, the government
can quickly find out everyone you have ever talked to and written to;
everything you have ever read and bought; and everywhere you have ever
been.

The US authorities’ relentless campaign to hunt down and block
whistleblower Edward Snowden’s attempts to seek asylum is deplorable and
amounts to a gross violation of his human rights Amnesty International
said today.“The US attempts to pressure governments to block
Snowden’s attempts to seek asylum are deplorable,” said Michael
Bochenek, Director of Law and Policy at Amnesty International. “It is
his unassailable right, enshrined in international law, to claim asylum
and this should not be impeded.”The organization also believes
that the National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower could be at risk
of ill-treatment if extradited to the USA.“No country can return a person to another country where there is a serious risk of ill-treatment,” said Bochenek.“We
know that others who have been prosecuted for similar acts have been
held in conditions that not only Amnesty International but UN officials
considered cruel inhuman and degrading treatment in violation of
international law.”Senior US officials have already condemned
Snowden without a trial, labelling him both guilty and a traitor,
raising serious questions as to whether he’d receive a fair trial.
Likewise the US authorities move to charge Snowden under the Espionage
Act could leave him with no provision to launch a public interest
whistle-blowing defence under US law."It appears he is being
charged by the US government primarily for revealing its - and other
governments’ - unlawful actions that violate human rights,” said
Bochenek.“No one should be charged under any law for disclosing
information of human rights violations. Such disclosures are protected
under the rights to information and freedom of expression.”Besides
filing charges against Snowden, the US authorities have revoked his
passport – which interferes with his rights to freedom of movement and
to seek asylum elsewhere.“Snowden is a whistleblower. He has
disclosed issues of enormous public interest in the US and around the
world. And yet instead of addressing or even owning up to these actions,
the US government is more intent on going after Edward Snowden.”

Ed Snowden has revealed a great deal. The angry reaction of the White
House has less to do with spying specifics and more to do with the fact
that Barack's true nature has been revealed. Ana Palacio (The Australian) offers, "More than any other incoming American president in recent memory, Obama
raised expectations worldwide. Yet he has proved to be mainly, if not
solely, interested in domestic issues, resulting in a foreign policy of
reaction. The Snowden affair highlights three elements of this:
US-Russia relations, US influence in South America, and US relations
with Europe." Stephanie Findlay (Macleans) observes
that Barack's (very expensive) trip to Africa has been a bust and
quotes the Wilson Center's Steve McDonald among those expressing
disappointment and pointing out "the visit could have been so much
more." And, as Frank James (NPR) notes, Barack's been revealed as impotent with regards to Egypt:The crisis of democracy in that country, specifically the military
coup that overthrew former President Mohammed Morsi, has left Obama
mostly a spectator to events.Indeed, he is even less free than
the average observer of the events in Egypt since he can't even use the
word "coup" to describe the change in government there.It's
widely suspected that he and other administration officials have so far
avoided using the word to avoid triggering a law that would require
cutting off $1.3 billion of aid to the Egyptian military. That aid
appears to be one of the few significant levers the U.S. has to
influence events there.

Unable to command any real power on the real stage, Barack resorts to
deceit and trickery to get the upper hand, ignoring the right to privacy
and invading the space of any and all. And when he's not spying on
Americans, he's busy trying to trick them. Chris Anders (ACLU Blog of Rights) offers the basics on Barack's nominee to be Director of the FBI:While most of us are enjoying an extra-long July 4th weekend, James Comey, a top Bush lawyer who approved waterboarding and torture,
is getting ready for one of his last hurdles before becoming FBI
director. I'm sure that torture supporters are hoping that we spend more
time at the beach and pool, and don't dig into Comey’s record.Behind this nomination is a strange and ironic story. Beginning on
Tuesday, President Obama might end up getting done what President Bush
failed to do during nearly all of his last four years in office. All
President Obama needs is for the Senate—and all of us—to look the other
way while rubber-stamping his choice to head the FBI for the next 10
years.As you may remember, after getting Alberto Gonzales confirmed as
attorney general at the start of his second term, President Bush spent
the next four years trying—and failing—to get the Senate to confirm any
other members of his torture policy team. The Senate, under both
Republican control and Democratic control, stood up to President Bush
and turned away nominee after nominee with a record of approving water
boarding or other torture. It was a principled and bipartisan rejection
of rewarding the Bush administration’s torture policies.
But in a bizarre twist, James Comey—who served as deputy attorney
general under both John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales, and who twice
gave a thumbs-up to torture—has been nominated to be the FBI director
for the next decade.

The
Metropolitan Police Department and US Park Police are aware that today
Adam Kokesh posted a video that appears to have been taken in Freedom
Plaza in Northwest, DC. We are in the process of determining the
authenticity of the video.

Jessica Huseman (Policy Mic) is offended.
Jessica is convinced that this is not helping his cause. She doesn't
give a damn about his cause, she's against it so why the hell is she
even writing about him?

To ridicule him and make fun of him. You know what, Adam serving in
Iraq didn't make him a saint, nor did his speaking out against the
illegal war make him above criticism or ridicule. He can be targeted
the same as any of the rest of us can be. But maybe Jessica should
look in the mirror?

What Adam supposedly did . . . It doesn't hurt his cause. I hope he's
not arrested but if he is, that's what happens. I personally wish he
wouldn't do these sort of things. That's not because I dislike his
politics or his convictions. I admire his integrity. My personal
problem is there are a lot of crazy people and when Jessica thinks she's
being cute, she's really just handing out torches to the town mob. I
seriously worry that Adam's going to get hurt at some point. That's not
because of the gun issue, it could be the tax issue or any of his other
stands.

I worry about him. But he's an adult so all I can do is just applaud
him for the bravery and wish him the best in his political battles. If
everyone showed even half the fire and integrity Adam repeatedly does,
we wouldn't have NSA spying, we wouldn't have US troops going back into
Iraq, etc. Adam's a brave activist. He takes ethical stands. Jessica
Huseman? She's a blathering idiot who popularizes Adam's cause while
thinking she's taking him down. If she needs additional targets to try
to make herself better, she can refer to Matthew Rothschild's "Anti-Patriotic Quotes to Ponder on July 4" (The Progressive)
and find a historical treasure trove of people who stood up for things
they believed in. And, at some point, Jessica Huseman might want to ask
herself why, in an Age of Apathy, she's attacking anyone who's standing
up for what they believe?

Friday, July 05, 2013

I don't really have much to write about so I'll note that over the weekend we streamed And God Created Woman at Netflix. This is the film directed by Roger Vadim but starring Rebecca De Mornay and Vincent Spano.

I've seen the original with Briggite Bardot (also directed by Vadim) and it's a cultural artifact and a piece of French New Wave history.

But I honestly prefer this one.

The story is different and it's a more involving story.

Rebecca is in prison at the start of the movie. She breaks out and gets a ride in a limo. The limo has to turn around because the man forgot his brief case . . . at the prison.

She sneaks back in and almost gets caught but Vincent Spano is doing repairs at the prison and he hides her and they make out.

Then she finds out the man in the limo is running for governor and she calls him collect from prison to ask him to help her with her parole board hearing. He tells her she needs a job or a husband. And she decides to make a deal with Vincent. She'll give him $5000 and live with him for a year doing the cleaning in exchange for him marrying her.

She doesn't really keep her part of the bargain but he's only agreed to it because he thinks the bargain includes sex. It doesn't. He goes back to some woman he's got something on the side with and she's sleeping with the politician.

When the two finally do have sex again, it's in a place he's working on -- a museum -- and pictures are taken.

Her parole officer takes the photos to the governor wanna be to avoid a 'scandal' and says he talked the museum into agreeing not to press charges and the politician says he is done protecting her.

So she's going to be busted for parole violation. She makes love with her husband -- granted in public -- and this is a parole violation?

Okay.

So anyway, De Mornay and Spano are good in their roles. And you can see why she took it especially. The film offered her a role where she wasn't 'the girl' and where she actually got to explore some things and portray an active character. I think she did a great job.

I also think Vadim did a great job directing and love the colors. He's got the best use of color he's had since The Game Is Over.

The film bombed at the box office and critics savage it. But I really think the critical reaction is over the top and maybe a reflection of what they think about women (they're threatened by a strong female character) because it is a movie that pulls you in and holds your attention.

QUESTION: Yeah. I got a couple things on Egypt, just to begin with.MS. PSAKI: Mm-hmm.QUESTION: One, what’s your understanding of the situation on the ground right now in Cairo and with the President and with the military?And in anticipation of you saying it’s a very fluid situation and we
don’t really know what’s going on, the second part of the question would
be: What is your reaction, the Administration’s reaction, to President
Morsy’s speech last night and your reaction, in turn, to the military’s
response to that?MS. PSAKI: Well, first let me say – and I hate to disappoint,
Matt, as always, but we do, of course, remain very concerned about what
we’re seeing on the ground. And we do realize, of course, that this is
an extremely tense and fast-moving situation in Egypt. We are monitoring
it very closely, as you all know and as we’ve talked about in here, for
the past several days and continue to believe that, of course, the
Egyptian people deserve a peaceful, political solution to the current
crisis.We did, of course, watch this – or monitor the speech or have seen
reports on the speech from last evening and felt there was an absence of
significant, specific steps laid out in Mr. – President Morsy’s speech.
We had said that he must do more to be truly responsive and
representative to the justified concerns expressed by the Egyptian
people, and unfortunately, that was not a part of what he talked about
in his speech.And a larger point here is, of course, that regardless of the
contents of his speech, actions speak louder than words and any words
that could be in a speech. And as the President as conveyed, as the
Secretary has conveyed, and others have conveyed to their counterparts,
it’s important for President Morsy to listen to the Egyptian people and
to take steps to engage with all sides.QUESTION: Okay. And your – then after the President finished
speaking, the military had quite a interesting response. What’s your
reaction to the military’s response?MS. PSAKI: Well, I would say broadly here that we believe all
sides need to take steps to talk with each other, to engage with each
other, to lower the level of violence, and call for an end to the
violence, and we’re hopeful that that is something that can happen.QUESTION: Okay. Well, it sounds as though you were not
pleased, to say the least, with what the President had to say. And your
refusal to say anything, at least up to this point, in response to the
military statement, which was basically – I believe basically just we’re
going – not going to let fools or idiots ruin Egypt, that you’re
unhappy with the President but you’re not so unhappy with the military.MS. PSAKI: Well, I wouldn’t characterize it in that way, Matt.
We think that all sides need to engage with each other and need to
listen to the voices of the Egyptian people and what they are calling
for and peacefully protesting about. And that’s a message we’ve conveyed
at all levels, to all sides.QUESTION: Well, which side, the President’s side or the
military’s side, do you think is listening to the concerns of the
Egyptian people? And just as – I want to make sure I understand this.
You felt that Morsy’s speech, President Morsy’s speech, was not
responsive to either the Egyptian people’s concerns or to President
Obama’s encouragement of him to take specific steps.MS. PSAKI: That’s correct.QUESTION: That is correct? Okay. So which side now – which
side do you think is more – is being more responsive to the Egyptian
people’s concerns and grievances, the President and the government or
the military?MS. PSAKI: Well, I appreciate the opportunity. I’m not going
to rank the sides. We don’t take sides, as you know. But again, the
President is the one who gave the speech, and so he had an opportunity
to lay out some specific steps and he did not take the opportunity to do
that.QUESTION: Right. But you don’t have anything negative to say about the military response, which --MS. PSAKI: Again, Matt, I think we’ve been very clear here --QUESTION: -- says volumes.MS. PSAKI: -- that we would like all sides to engage with each
other. We think this – that a peaceful, political resolution of this is
the preferred option and what’s best for the Egyptian people.QUESTION: They just placed Morsy under house arrest. I don’t know if you’re aware.MS. PSAKI: Well --QUESTION: The military just placed President Morsy under house
arrest. He’s not allowed to make calls, he’s not allowed to receive
guests or whatever or meet with anyone. Do you have any comment?MS. PSAKI: Well, Said, I know – as I mentioned at the
beginning, this is a very fluid situation. We don’t have any independent
confirmation of a variety of reports, including that one, so I don’t
have any comment specifically on it.QUESTION: So do you consider this to be a military coup? I
know the President warned against a military coup. Do you consider this
to be a military coup?MS. PSAKI: Again, Said, because this is a very fluid
situation, we’re monitoring it closely. But I don’t have any independent
confirmation of many of these reports that have been out in the last
hour or so.QUESTION: But I want to understand you correctly. And, I mean,
in the diplomatic parlance, whenever the military takes the president,
the democratically elected president, and places him under house arrest,
is that considered a coup d’etat?MS. PSAKI: Again, I’m not going to speak to reports that we don’t have confirmation of.

Can you believe how Jen Psaki, State Department spokesperson, refuses to answer the questions?

Why is our government so damn secretive?

They really don't work for us, they don't try to protect us, they fear us because they've screwed us over and so many are catching on.

Wednesday, July 3, 2013. Chaos and violence continue, this was
predicted in 2010 and we note that prediction and who made it, James
Zogby is a Democratic Party superdelegate and he's not objective but he
is a whore, Iraq qualifies for the World Cup quarter-finals, Lie Face
Melissa attacks whistle-blower Ed Snowden, Dennis Bernstein and Norman
Solomon marvel over those who justify the spying on Americans, Joan Wile
gears up for a Central Park event tomorrow, and more.

MARGARET
WARNER: Let me just interrupt, and quickly, because I -- before we run
out of time, what is this going to mean for the violence we have been
seeing on the rise in Iraq, Mr. Istrabadi?

FEISAL
ISTRABADI: I don't see any indications that Nouri al-Maliki has the
first idea of what to do about the rising violence. The violence cannot
be dealt with -- and we have been saying this for five years -- the
violence cannot be dealt with merely militarily. There has to be
reconciliation amongst the various factions. Nothing in Nouri
al-Maliki's history indicates that he is prepared to undertake such
reconciliation.

That's from the November 12, 2010 snapshot so "last night" was the November 11, 2010 broadcast of The NewsHour. Let's note one more time Feisal Istrabadi's remarks.

FEISAL
ISTRABADI: I don't see any indications that Nouri al-Maliki has the
first idea of what to do about the rising violence. The violence cannot
be dealt with -- and we have been saying this for five years -- the
violence cannot be dealt with merely militarily. There has to be
reconciliation amongst the various factions. Nothing in Nouri
al-Maliki's history indicates that he is prepared to undertake such
reconciliation.

FEISAL
ISTRABADI: I don't see any indications that Nouri al-Maliki has the
first idea of what to do about the rising violence. The violence cannot
be dealt with -- and we have been saying this for five years -- the
violence cannot be dealt with merely militarily. There has to be
reconciliation amongst the various factions. Nothing in Nouri
al-Maliki's history indicates that he is prepared to undertake such
reconciliation.

Baghdad, 3 July 2013– The Special Representative of
the United Nations Secretary-General for Iraq (SRSG), Mr. Martin
Kobler, condemned in the strongest possible terms the wave of attacks
that claimed dozens of lives across Iraq yesterday. كوردى “These
devastating terrorist attacks once again targeted innocent citizens
going about their daily activities, struggling to build a more hopeful
future for themselves and their children in a highly volatile
environment,” the UN Envoy said. “They follow two weeks during which
we’ve seen an increasing number of attacks targeting cafés, football
fields and other locations where people socialize and nurture the
personal relationships and social fabric that are so important for a
strong, prosperous country.” “I once again urge the Iraqi
authorities to do their utmost and take all necessary measures to
protect the people of Iraq from more bloodshed,” he added. “This carnage
must stop.” Mr. Kobler extended his sincere condolences to the
families of the victims and wishes for a speedy recovery to those who
were wounded.
Martin Kobler's really good about these generic statements. But who
could be considered responsible for the violence? Let's quote it one
more time:

FEISAL
ISTRABADI: I don't see any indications that Nouri al-Maliki has the
first idea of what to do about the rising violence. The violence cannot
be dealt with -- and we have been saying this for five years -- the
violence cannot be dealt with merely militarily. There has to be
reconciliation amongst the various factions. Nothing in Nouri
al-Maliki's history indicates that he is prepared to undertake such
reconciliation.

He was right. Nouri wasn't going to help that, he was only going to increase the tensions that encourage the violence.

We'll come back to the violence. But we've noted someone who was right
nearly three years ago. Someone who has been proven right. Let's note
someone else now, someone whose first name should be Falsehood.

"Secondly, I'm one of the few people of Arab descent -- few people of
Arab-Americans and activists -- who has always supported Kurdish
self-determination." Beware anyone making such a claim. Anyone so
self-involved and so stupid that he thinks he can get away with that
claim. The idiot in question? James Zogby. Kurds beware as he makes
that statement right before attempting to tell the Kurds that they need
to back off certain goals and certain deals having to do with oil and "a
Kurdish independent move." He's a whore, he's a cheap whore.

The Zogby family's idiot polling has been a joke among pollsters for
years. That's because it's always been a hybrid and a questionable
sample. It's also because the polls tended to lean towards Democratic
Party goals -- not left goals, Democratic Party goals -- not rank and
file Democrat goals, leadership goals. Why would the polling match up
so closely with what leaders wanted -- especially when Gallup and others
didn't match up? Who knows? But one thing that might have helped
answer the question was the reality that James Zogby was on the
Democratic Party's Executive Committee -- a fact rarely reported and one
he doesn't tend to disclose in on air appearances.

For Rudaw, Naom Abudlla hosted Zogby and David Mack (1986 to 1989
US Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates; 1990 to 1993 Deputy
Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs) for a broadcast
entitled "Invaded By Bush, Abandoned by Obama, What's Next For Iraq?" (link is text) and that's where he made his laughable claim about being "one of the few."James Zogby: I remember that election in Iraq very well. I remember
doing my own TV show for one full year after that election and talking
about the same thing every week which was: are you going to get a
government, what kind of government are you going to get, what's the
coalition going to look like and is Iraq governable given the sectarian
differences and the partisan differences that currently exists? That
was the situation, that was the house George [Bush] built. That was
what President Obama -- that was the house he moved into. And so I
think options were limited. Our leverage was limited. Vice President
Biden tried very hard to negotiate a framework of governance that
actually would be all encompassing, that would include the State of Law
party [headed by Nouri] and Iraqiya [headed by Ayad Allawi]/ Uhm, it
didn't work. And, uh, uh, al-Maliki had his own agenda and has been
pursuing it rather vigorously -- I think to the detriment of a-a-a more
democrat en-en-environment in Iraq. Namo Abdulla: So --James Zogby: So-so I think we're in a difficult situation. And I
think, again, our leverage is limited. And, uh, uhm, I think Iran has
far greater leverage in Iraq right now than-than the US does.[. . .]

David Mack: Ayad Allawi had plenty of time to establish a coalition
that he would lead. He failed. And there are a lot of reasons for that
that we can't get into here, uhm, but, uh, in the end, the US did not
have the kind of political power within the country that an occupying
army might be able to wield and so we couldn't keep, we couldn't prop up
a government that, uh, couldn't establish a cabinet that would get a
parliamentary majority. Uh, so we're having to make the best -- Do the
best we can.

The house that George built? There are so many damn lies in the above.
In March 2010, Bully Boy Bush was out of the White House. And the
Iraqi people voted Iraqiya the winners in the election. The White House
had the choice of backing the Iraqi Constitution and democracy (and in
the process getting rid of the US puppet Nouri al-Maliki that Bully Boy
Bush installed in 2006) and chose not to. Instead, they chose to side
with Nouri.

Washington has little political and no military influence
over these developments [in Iraq]. As Michael Gordon and Bernard
Trainor charge in their ambitious new history of the Iraq war, The Endgame,
Obama's administration sacrificed political influence by failing in
2010 to insist that the results of Iraq’s first proper election be
honored: "When the Obama administration acquiesced in the questionable
judicial opinion that prevented Ayad Allawi's bloc, after it had won the
most seats in 2010, from the first attempt at forming a new government,
it undermined the prospects, however slim, for a compromise that might
have led to a genuinely inclusive and cross-sectarian government."

Unlike James Zogby's weekly coverage, we covered the political stalemate
in real time and were among the first (maybe the first) to apply the
term "political stalemate." That's the eight months plus after the
election when nothing happens. Why does nothing happen? Because
Nouri's lost the election. And Nouri doesn't want to give his palace,
doesn't want to give up his post.

France was advocating for a caretaker government, the US government
blocked that. The top US commander in Iraq at that time, Gen Ray
Odierno, was very concerned, months before the March 2010 elections,
that Nouri could lose and that Nouri would refuse to step down. When he
sounded alarms, the White House elected to instead listen to the idiot
Chris Hill. Hill would be fired from his post as US Ambassador in Iraq
during the political stalemate once the White House learned how
incompetent Hill was. (James Jeffrey would replace him.) To pretend
that what happened was a surprise is a lie. To pretend that the US
didn't back Nouri in the stalemate is also a lie. He couldn't have sat
there for eight months without the backing of the US. Had the backing
only lasted three months, Nouri wouldn't be prime minister.

We covered Iraq every day in 2010. So we're aware, for example, that
Moqtada al-Sadr didn't support Nouri. And wouldn't until late in the
stalemate. The first thing Moqtada did was announce another vote. In
his vote, you would chose who Moqtada (and his bloc in Parliament) would
throw their support behind. If, like James Zogby, you've missed or forgotten these facts, you can refer to the starting April 2, 2010 snapshot for the election and the April 9, 2010 snapshot for the election results.

Nouri lost that Moqtada vote. Had the White House not been backing
Nouri at that time, in the spring, then Nouri's support would have
crumbled. Samantha Power is the person who sold Barack on the assertion
that Nouri was the best choice. She argued that Nouri would provide
stability and Nouri was in the best interest of the US government. So
great was Power's argument that Barack dismissed the CIA briefing that
argued for a member of the Islamic Supreme Council in Iraq to be prime
minister. The CIA briefing noted Nouri's mental instability (the State
Dept had noted throughout his first term that Nouri's paranoia was
dangerous). The CIA briefing even noted that Nouri with a second term
would most likely mean Nouri demanding a third term. Then-Secretary of
Defense Robert Gates did not back anyone but argued to Barack that the
will of the voters should be respected (that would mean a prime minister
from the Iraqiya bloc) and that it would be very dangerous to give
Nouri a second term. Gates didn't matter either. Joe Biden warned
against it and that didn't matter either. Barack was convinced that
Samantha Power was a political savant. The self-styled journalist who
-- as Keith Harmon Snow
has long documented -- got everything wrong about anything she
'reported' on became the one-sided historian who pointed fingers at
other countries in her writing but never found the United States
government wanting or in the wrong. As Edward Herman (ZNet) has noted:

Power
never departs from the selectivity dictated by the establishment party
line. That requires, first and foremost, simply ignoring cases of
direct U.S. or U.S.-sponsored (or otherwise approved) genocide. Thus the
Vietnam war, in which millions were directly killed by U.S. forces,
does not show up in Power's index or text. Guatemala,
where there was a mass killing of as many as 100,000 Mayan Indians
between 1978 and 1985, in what Amnesty International called "A
Government Program of Political Murder," but by a government installed
and supported by the United States,
also does not show up in Power's index. Cambodia is of course
included, but only for the second phase of the genocide—the first phase,
from 1969-1975, in which the United States dropped some 500,000 tons of
bombs on the Cambodian countryside and killed vast numbers, she fails
to mention. On the Khmer Rouge genocide, Power says they killed 2
million, a figure widely cited after Jean Lacouture gave that number;
his subsequent admission that this number was invented had no effect on
its use, and it suits Power's purpose.

A
major U.S.-encouraged and supported genocide occurred in Indonesia in
1965-66 in which over 700,000 people were murdered. This genocide is not
mentioned by Samantha Power and the names Indonesia and Suharto do not
appear in her index. She also fails to mention West Papua, where
Indonesia's
40 years of murderous occupation would constitute genocide under her
criteria, if carried out under different auspices. Power does refer to
East Timor, with extreme brevity, saying that "In 1975, when its ally,
the oil-producing, anti-Communist Indonesia, invaded East Timor, killing
between 100,000 and 200,000 civilians, the United States looked away"
(146-7). That exhausts her treatment of the subject, although the
killings in East Timor involved a larger fraction of the population than
in Cambodia, and the numbers killed were probably larger than the grand
total for Bosnia
and Kosovo, to which she devotes a large fraction of her book. She also
misrepresents the U.S. role—it did not "look away," it gave its
approval, protected the aggression from any effective UN response (in
his autobiography, then U.S. Ambassador to the UN Daniel Patrick
Moynihan bragged about his effectiveness in protecting Indonesia from
any UN action), and greatly increased its arms aid to Indonesia, thereby
facilitating the genocide.

That's who Barack chose to listen to and his lack of experience and his
lack of common sense explains why Iraq is mired in crises today.
Equally true, the US-brokered Erbil Agreement ended the stalemate in
November 2010. This contract gave Nouri a second term as prime
minister, bypassing the Iraqi Constitution, in exchange for Nouri
agreeing to give the political blocs various things. Nouri used The
Erbil Agreement to get the second term but then violated The Erbil
Agreement. Among other things, Nouri promised in that legal contract
that Ayad Allawi would head a new independent committee. Let's drop
back to November 11th,
when Ayad Allawi was wavering on The Erbil Agreement -- had walked out
of Parliament -- and needed a phone call from a big name to reassure
him:

Martin Chulov (Guardian) reports
one hiccup in the process today involved Ayad Allawi who US President
Barack Obama phoned asking/pleading that he accept the deal because "his
rejection of post would be a vote of no confidence". Ben Lando, Sam Dagher and Margaret Coker (Wall St. Journal) confirm
the phone call via two sources and state Allawi will take the post --
newly created -- of chair of the National Council On Higher Policy: "Mr.
Obama, in his phone call to Mr. Allawi on Thursday, promised to throw
U.S. weight behind the process and guarantee that the council would
retain meaningful and legal power, according to the two officials with
knowledge of the phone call."

Nouri never created that position. And Iraqiya quickly found out -- as
the Kurds would shortly after -- that Barack Obama's word wasn't worth
s**t.

Also true, David Mack's nonsense about forming a cabinet?

Nouri never did. That's a Constitutional requirement. That's not 'most
of a Cabinet.' That's a full Cabinet. Nouri never formed a full
Cabinet. That's true even today.

Last July, Mohammed Tawfeeq (CNN) observed,
"Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has struggled to forge a lasting
power-sharing agreement and has yet to fill key Cabinet positions,
including the ministers of defense, interior and national security,
while his backers have also shown signs of wobbling support." Those
positions were supposed to have been filled before the end of December
2010. They were not. They are still not filled. Nouri refused to fill
them because once the Iraqi Parliament confirms a nominee, that nominee
is autonomous. Nouri can't fire them, only the Parliament can. (Which
isn't easy. Nouri's gotten Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi convicted
of 'terrorism' and sentenced to death with the Baghdad courts he
controls but he can't get Parliament to strip Tareq of his title.)

Zogby laments that the Iraq Study Group recommendations were not
implemented -- which would shock people who think this piece of s**t is
just a columnist and runs a polling group with his brother John Zogby.
No, he's a Democratic Party insider whose power comes from that role.
He doesn't have an independent power base.

And, I'm sorry, but Rudaw needs to mention that on air when they
interview him. Considering that they allowed him to attack John McCain
and minimize Barack's actions, they need to note it, they need to note
that James Zogby is a super-delegate, that he pledged to Barack in the
summer of 2007 (he publicly made the pledge at the end of February 2008,
he told the Obama campaign in the summer of 2007). This is not an
impartial guest. You owe it to your audience to let them know who's
speaking -- in fact David Mack showed more independence than did Zogby.

Back to the violence. If Nouri ever bothered to nominate people to head
the security ministries -- ever once in the last three years -- as he
was supposed to, would the security situation be so bad?

Baghdad, 3 July 2013; Director of UNESCO Office in
Iraq Ms. Louise Haxthausen condemned the killing of Dr. Ahmed Shaker,
professor at the University of Baghdad and urged the authorities to
investigate this crime.

"UNESCO condemns this terrible act and offers its
deep condolences to Dr. Shaker's family and friends, as well as his
colleagues and students at the University of Baghdad", said Ms.
Haxthausen. "A clear message must be sent to the perpetrators that their
acts will not go unpunished. Such crimes affect the Iraqi society at
whole, as they erode the human capital of the country. Teachers and
professors define the shape of our future. They are the true advocates
of durable peace and sustainable development in Iraq”, added Ms.
Haxthausen.

According to security reports, Dr. Ahmed Shakir,
specialist in cardio-vascular diseases and professor at the Faculty of
medicine in the University of Baghdad, was killed when a bomb planted in
his car exploded in Zaafaraniyya, south of Baghdad, on Monday 1 July
2013.

Acts of violence committed against academics and
scientists in Iraq remain a main cause of brain drain. Many qualified
academics flee to other countries in search of security. In partnership
with the Iraqi government and UN sister Organizations, UNESCO is
responding to these challenges through projects that focus on supporting
Iraq in restoring its human capital, and improving the country’s
learning environment.

Yesterday's violence claimed many lives including that of Abdul Rahman Adnan. NINA reports
that he was killed in Falluja and that he was Iraq's Body Building
Champion. Though it's posted three times today and twice yesterday's
Iraq's Ministry of Youth and Sports hasn't noted the passing of Abdul Rahman Adnan. In other sports news, All Iraq News reports Iraq beat Paraguay today in the World Cup quarter-finals. AP notes that this is Iraq's "first appearance in the tournament for 12 years." UK Eurosport adds, "Iraq's match with Paraguay saw the Middle Eastern nation win thanks to an extra-time strike by Farhan Shakor." And Supersport offers this recap of that play, "Adnan has been something of a hero for Iraq at these finals and he
was involved at the other end when Hakeem Shakir’s side took the lead
four minutes into the additional 30 of extra time. His deep cross caught Paraguay captain Junior Alonso napping, and in
stole substitute Farhan Shakor to send a header spinning into the net
off the inside of the left-hand post. The noisy band of Iraqi fans
erupted, which Shakir did a jig of delight, and they can now look
forward to a trip to Kayseri in the quarterfinals." Meanwhile CNN reports on a new sport growing in Iraq:

Leaping from rooftops and doing backflips off walls is when Prince Haydar feels the most free.

The 25-year-old from
Baghdad is one of the city's small band of freerunners, who take every
opportunity to practice parkour in a city striving for normality and
currently facing a resurgence of deadly violence.

"When I do parkour, I get rid of all the scattered thoughts in my head and empty all the anger from inside me," said Haydar.

From the streets of Paris
in the 1990s, where parkour was first popularized, to Zawra park in
Iraq's capital, freerunning has become a global phenomenon.

Today NINA reports:The political bureau of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) published
the points that have been agreed upon with the political bureau of the
Democratic Party on the extension of the presidential term.According
to the points, the constitution of the region will be modified by
national consensus, while the extension of the presidential term will be
linked to on condition that Massoud Barzani will not nominate again.

All Iraq News speaks
with MP Latif Nirawi (a member of Talabani's PUK party) who discusses
the same conditions. Asked about the extension of the presidential term
and the Constituional issues at stake during the US State Dept press
briefing today, spokesperson Jen Psaki was clearly caught off guard and
responded, "I would just have to check with our Iraq folks on that for
you and get you a response. I’m happy to do that."

QUESTION: Did you manage to get an answer to my question on Iraq yesterday?MS. PSAKI: I did. I did. Thanks for bringing that up. So
we’ve, of course, seen the press reporting and we will be engaging with
officials there to discuss the implications of this decision. The United
States supports regular, free and democratic elections as fundamental
to ensuring the will of the people. And we are looking forward to seeing
successful parliamentary and provincial elections in September in the
Kurdish region. And we are confident that the new Kurdish regional
parliament will take up issues of concern to the Kurdish people such as
finalizing a regional constitution and presidential elections.

QUESTION: So you’re comfortable with the fact that the
decision on whether to hold presidential elections will be postponed
until the new Kurdish parliament meets post the elections in September?MS. PSAKI: Well, I think we’re hopeful that this will all happen soon
and that they will undertake to put in place elections soon.QUESTION: And in general, a two-year delay on holding presidential elections, how would you characterize that?MS. PSAKI: I don’t want to characterize it other than to say that we’re hopeful that they’ll have these elections soon.QUESTION: Okay. Thank you.

Today Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Pants On The Ground"
went up noting Barack's humiliation from the NSA whistle-blowing Ed
Snowden has done. The media is against Ed Snowden and that includes the
ones that are supposed to be left like the losers of MSNBC. That
includes Melissa Harris-Lacewell who's remarried again and has the name
Melissa Harris-Parry. She's destroyed her family life (and doesn't even
know it) and she's just a little liar. Ava
and I called her out through out 2008, over and over, dubbed her Lie
Face, noted "Black" Melissa vouching that Barack was "Black" even though
he had a White mother probably should be telling Black audiences that
she's got a White mommy too. Instead, in some sort of reverse Imitation of Life,
she denied her own mother and was left to sing "I'm Living In Shame"
when not lying on television and radio as an analyst who 'forgot' to
tell the hosts and audiences that she was working for Barack's campaign
and had been since 2007. Democracy Now!, Charlie Rose, so many shows
she appeared on as an 'analyst' who forgot to explain she was working
for the Barack Obama campaign. It's what whores do -- even ugly ones
with ratty, dollar store 'hair.' It's why she's not at Princeton
today. That was a huge ethical violation and if others had joined Ava
and I in calling her out, she might not have a show on MSNBC to lie from
today. At any rate, Bruce Dixon (Black Agenda Report) notes her non-stop attacks on Ed Snowden:

A day or two later Harris-Perry channeled the cop again, with a
Snowden segment on her own show. Harris-Perry insisted from her comfy TV
chair, that any whistleblower or dissenter who failed to meekly submit
to whatever punishment authorities deign to mete out is illegitimate at
least, possibly self-serving as well, though just how the self is served
in such cases was unclear. She brought up Martin Luther King, Nelson
Mandela, the state senator who filibustered in Texas, and the folks who
get arrested for “Moral Mondays” in North Carolina every week, and later
in the show, Dan Ellsberg..Harris-Perry might be a bright professor, but on TV she's a lousy cop and a worse historian.Nelson Mandela was on the run for years, a fugitive inside and
outside South Africa, before being caught. The ANC maintained camps and
facilities in African countries neighboring South Africa quite openly
during the last decade or two of the apartheid regime, while receiving
substantial aid from many African countries and most notably from the
Soviet Union. They got none from the United States, by the way. Martin
Luther King was arrested many but usually refused bail for a day or two
while the press and religious leaders successfully clamored for his
release. Dr. King never faced the prospect of felony time except once,
briefly, for breaking a silly law against boycotting. King's longest
stretch in jail was 11 days, during which he was allowed to write a
short book, Letters From a Birmingham Jail, while receiving phone calls
and interviews from people around the world.Daniel Ellsberg was released on bond after no more than a day or two
in custody, and the “Moral Monday” folks are typically booked for
disorderly conduct or some such trivial offense.None of that compares with the way the US treats political
dissidents, and even suspected political dissidents today. Bradley
Manning has been confined almost 3 years, the entire first year naked
and in solitary confinement, no letters, no interviews, no phone calls,
no writing materials, and a gag order slapped on his lawyers. What's a
gag order mean? It means you can't talk about the case publicly or
privately, sometimes that you can't tell an outsider the defendant says
“happy irthday” to so-and-so. Veteran civil rights attorney Lynne
Stewart is about to die in a federal prison for transmitting an
innocuous public message from a defendant convicted of terrorism.King was allowed to write a book in prison. Iman Jamil Al Amin, who
as H. Rap Brown led SNCC and risked his life to start freedom schools,
organize co-ops and register voters in rural Alabama was finally framed
for the shooting of a deputy in Atlanta. To keep him from family and
other Georgia prisoners, he was moved to federal custody and is now in
an underground supermax cell half a continent away in Colorado, allowed
one phone call and one letter to family per month. California prisoners
found with just the name --- not his books, just the scrawled name ---
of Black Panther leader George Jackson or other political items are
classified as “gang members” and placed in automatic solitary
confinement for the remainder of their sentences, which may also be
lengthened due to that classification.

Dennis Bernstein:
And I'm concerned, Norman, that a driving force in Obama's ability to
continue is the endlessly forgiving liberal community, his supporters.
Uh, the kinds of defenses I've heard of this from people I never
expected to hear -- I'm not going to name names here -- but the kind of
bending over backwards so far you have to break your spine to somehow
defend what Obama has been doing is beyond belief.

Norman Solomon: Yes, we've got to snap out of any tendency to accept
a policy which is reprehensible because we like the person or think
that we have reason to like the person --Dennis Bernstein: He's a good talker.Norman Solomon: Yeah and so if you just step back and you look at
this massive surveillance program which has been by any measure extended
in the last four and a half years by this administration. And just
step back and think "Now what if was McCain, what if it was Romney what
if it was Bush instead of Obama in the Oval Office?" It is no more
acceptable no matter what the party or persona of the president. And
this gets down to matters of life and death in terms of endless war.
And it goes back to Civil Liberties and if we're going to retain the
actuality of these precious amendments that we call the Bill of Rights,
particularly the First, Fourth and Fifth, then it is essential for us
to say "we stand on principle." And that includes calling to account
every member of Congress and Senator who claims to represent us and I'm
talking about Barbara Lee we're broadcasting from her district in the
East Bay but throughout California and the country there are members of
Congress who should be getting our phone calls and letters and we
should not let them wriggle off the hook. All the platitudes don't do
it. There's Obama administration perpetuating the surveillance state and
it has to be challenged on that basis.Dennis Bernstein: If all of these revelations came out under Bush I
Bush II imagine if this came out under Shrub all these liberals -- all
these progressive -- they'd be like -- we'd be 'How could this
Republican do this!'

Norman Solomon: Well there's that important principal: Be here now.
And that means being real about the political circumstances -- not that
we wish we were or we expected we'd be in but where we are now. If you
go back to the huge story which was delayed a year by the New York Times
but did break in late 2005 revealing the NSA spying on Americans the
wiretapping and so forth -- remember the huge uproar that was under
President Bush? And then we had candidate Obama for president saying,
"I am opposed to illegal infringement upon people's privacy rights. I
am opposed to illegal wiretapping." We didn't understand what he was
saying. We had a tendency to believe that, in 2008, what Obama was
saying was he didn't want that kind of surveillance to go on because it
was illegal. What we now know and it's very clear is that President
Obama does not want that surveillance to be illegal he wants it to be
legalized, in fact he voted for that the FISA legislation in the middle
of 2008 as a senator that's where we are now. These surveillance
measures, no matter what secret hand picked court says, they are
unconstitutional they are fundamental violations of our rights.

Norman Siegel, the eminent civil liberties attorney, got a unique idea
44 years ago. He decided that on July 4 he would go and sit quietly and
read the Constitution and reflect on the principles underlying our
Democracy. He felt it was the most appropriate way to celebrate the
holiday.

And, he did so for the next 36 years.
Wherever he was, he would find a perch somewhere in a quiet spot and
read and reflect alone on the Constitution.

Seven years ago, he decided to make it a
public event. With the assistance of New York City's peace grannies --
the Raging Grannies, Grandmothers Against the War, and the Granny Peace
Brigade -- he began his annual Reading of the Constitution in
Strawberry Fields.

This
year will mark the seventh Annual Reading in the lovely Central Park
oasis created as a tribute to John Lennon by his widow Yoko Ono. At
noon on Thursday, July 4, Siegel and his many supporters will once again
gather in Strawberry Fields to read aloud parts of the Constitution,
the Bill of Rights, and the entire Declaration of Independence and
discuss their principles in terms of recent decisions by the Supreme
Court as well as revelations of increased U.S. Government surveillance
practices.

The
Reading has become a tradition for July 4 in New York City along with
Nathan's hot dog eating contest and Macy's fireworks and is not to be
missed by people concerned with how our government is adhering to the
tenets of the great documents.

There will be guest commentators and entertainment by the Raging Grannies.

Everyone
is welcome to attend at noon on July 4 in Strawberry Fields, entered at
CPW and West 72nd Street. Follow the path for a block at the
STRAWBERRY FIELDS sign.

Followers

About Me

I'm Michael, Mike to my friends. College student working his way through. I'm also Irish-American and The New York Times can kiss my Irish ass. And check out Trina's Kitchen on my links, that's my mother's site.